September 27, 2013

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in 1988 by two UN agencies as a way to collect and disseminate the current best science on climate disruption. Since then, it has issued four assessment reports. Today, the IPCC began releasing its fifth assessment (known as the AR5). The first part is a "Summary for Policymakers." You can find it here, but there are five things you really need to know about it.

1. The scientific work reported by the IPCC in the AR5 is the gold standard for getting a big-picture understanding of what's happening to our climate. The report itself has 259 authors from 36 countries. They are scrupulous about quantifying the certainty of both findings and projections. This report is the best tool we have for making informed, rational decisions on how to deal with climate disruption.

2. There is a lot of bad news: Several effects of climate disruption have accelerated during the past decade, such as the loss of Arctic sea ice, the melting of big glaciers, and the rise of sea levels.

3. The effects of climate disruption are not only happening today, but they're also speeding up. In fact, 12 of the warmest years in recorded history occurred during the last 15 years -- and the IPCC report says it's only going to get more intense.

4. Although global warming and climate disruption are the best-known consequences of carbon pollution, they're not the only ones we should worry about. The oceans absorb carbon from the atmosphere and, as they do, become more acidic. This acidification is already killing coral reefs around the world. Ultimately, it could disrupt the entire marine food chain. Ours is a water planet -- do we really want to risk killing our oceans?

5. OK, enough with the scary stuff. Here's the single most important thing you need to know about the AR5: It's not too late. We still have time to do something about climate disruption. The best estimate from the best science is that we can limit warming from human-caused carbon pollution to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit -- if we act now. Bottom line: Our house is on fire. Rather than argue about how fast it's burning, we need to start throwing buckets of water.

We're going to need a lot of buckets. We'll also need to be smart about how we use them.

Our top priority must be to reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas, while boosting clean energy such as wind and solar. The proposed carbon pollution standards for new power plants that the Obama administration announced this week are aimed at our single biggest source of carbon pollution: coal. If you care about climate disruption, the most important thing you can do right now is voice your support for these protections, and get ready for an even more important fight next year to clean up pollution at existing power plants already in operation.

But President Obama also has some other big tools at his disposal: Rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline, ending destructive oil and gas drilling in the Arctic and on public lands, stopping mountaintop-removal mining, curbing fossil fuel exports, and closing loopholes that exempt drilling and fracking for oil and gas from fundamental environmental protections. You can bet that the Sierra Club and our millions of members and supporters will work hard to see that he uses them. Just as importantly, we'll also work to help build the clean-energy solutions that will take the place of those dirty fuels. Every wind turbine, every solar panel, every energy-efficient building is another step toward a clean-energy future.

The best climate scientists on the planet have sounded the alarm. Let's get to work!

September 25, 2013

Now that the EPA has released its draft carbon pollution standard for new power plants, coal apologists -- those who are left, anyway -- are doing their best chest-clutching
Fred Sanford impressions.

Why is no one taking their cries of doom seriously? Because coal already had no future. In the 21st century, investing in a new coal-fired power plant makes as much sense as building a typewriter factory. The market has already decided that coal is no longer competitive.

In Colorado, Xcel Energy wants to triple the amount of utility-scale solar power on its grid while also adding another 450 megawatts of wind power. For the first time, the utility says, it's finding that new solar projects are bidding cheaper than coal and natural gas.

It's not just Colorado. Nationwide, the price of clean energy sources has plummeted compared with coal. The cost of wind is down 50 percent since 2009, and solar panels are down 80 percent since 2008. That trend will only gain momentum.

Michael Yackira, CEO of NV Energy, said earlier this year that "coal is not part of the long-term future of Nevada… we think the costs are too great, the environmental concerns and the costs associated with those environmental concerns are too great." The heads of major energy providers like American Electric Power and Duke Energy have also signaled the end of new coal-fired power plants in the United States.

The writing has been on the wall since at least 2009, when the global head of asset management at Deutsche Bank said that coal was "a dead man walking."

At this point, it's more like a crawl. "There aren't any new coal plants being built now," said Warren Buffett earlier this year. "You'll see wind, you'll see solar." Goldman Sachs recently forecast that Asian demand for coal would weaken and downgraded its price projections for international coal, and Citibank joined them in their analysis.

But even if the new carbon standards only confirm an existing trend, they're still both important and extremely welcome. They show that the United States is serious about its commitment to reduce carbon pollution. Even more important, they show that the Clean Air Act is still effective at protecting Americans from dangerous air pollution.

September 21, 2013

Some great things have happened since that
freezing day last February when I marched to the Forward on Climate rally in
Washington, D.C., with 50,000 of my closest friends. Looking back, it did feel
like the start of something big. From the stage, the sight of that sea of faces
on the National Mall was unforgettable. For the first time, activists from all
kinds of backgrounds were standing together to say that we are not just
activists fighting a single pipeline, or waging isolated efforts to combat
fracking, coal, and dirty fuels; we are one climate movement, we are
determined and hopeful, and we will act to solve the climate crisis.

With one voice, we challenged the president, the
Congress, and our fellow Americans to stop waiting, stop listening to deniers
and special interests, and start working on solutions.

President Obama may not have been in town that
day, but he heard our message. Just a few months later, he delivered the first
national address on climate policy in U.S. history, put his Keystone XL
decision squarely into a climate context, and promised to use his executive
authority to act.

Yesterday, he delivered on part of that promise,
with new limits for the nation's single largest source of carbon pollution:
coal-fired power plants. That's an important step forward on climate, and the
president deserves credit for seeing it through.

Our momentum is building. Today Americans are
taking to the streets again (this time in more than 200 cities) to Draw the Line against the Keystone XL pipeline and dirty tar sands. And again,
we have reason to be both determined and hopeful. We're hopeful because, in
California, Colorado, Michigan, Iowa, South Dakota, and places all across the
country, solar and wind are being installed at rates cheaper than new coal or
new gas. Why build out fossil fuels when clean energy helps stabilize our
planet, is cheaper, and puts more people to work?

Why are we determined? Because the verdict is
already in: Keystone XL would be a climate disaster. The pipeline is the
lynchpin of the oil industry's plans to extract and burn the dirtiest source of
oil on the planet. Every year, it would create carbon pollution equivalent to
37.7 million cars (or 51 coal-fired power plants). If we are serious about
addressing climate disruption, Keystone XL cannot be built.

At the Draw the Line events, the Sierra Club,
350.org, and our many other partners around the nation will demonstrate the
urgency of rejecting this tar sands pipeline in favor of clean-energy
solutions. Join us! You can find the Draw the Line
events nearest to you here.

September 20, 2013

The ghost of the great cowboy philosopher and political humorist Will Rogers visited me last night. He showed me some new lariat tricks, commiserated about the recent Red Sox sweep of the Yankees, and shared a "salty one" he heard from Mark Twain. Inevitably, the talk turned to politics.

"How about that Congress?" Will asked. "They playing any better than the Yankees these days?"

"Not exactly," I said, "the Senate has been considering a bipartisan energy-efficiency bill that was introduced by Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, and Rob Portman, a Republican. It's the first energy bill the Senate has even come close to passing in six years. And they're whiffing."

Will looked skeptical. "Energy efficiency? Sounds like one of those patent medicines they sell on the radio. Mostly hokum."

"Sorry," said Will. "I lost the trail at straightforward and commonsense. As I always said, the Senate thinks its job is to sit and wait till they find out what the president wants, so they know how to vote against him."

"Maybe he thought it was about patent medicine, too," said Will, always ready to give even a politician he'd never met the benefit of the doubt.

"I don't think so," I said. "And, then, of course, other senators want to load up the bill with industry giveaways and rollbacks. It's all political gamesmanship, of course, but it's infuriating to see it obstruct a bill that would actually do so much good."

But Will was gone, leaving only the faintest scent of sagebrush in his wake.

You don't need to be a cowboy philosopher to appreciate what an embarrassment the U.S. Senate's handling of the Shaheen-Portman bill is. Frankly, as Will would say, it's bunk. If you think it's time for our senators to do their job and pass an energy-efficiency bill that would save money, create jobs, and help stop climate disruption, take a few seconds to send them a message.

September 16, 2013

This year, Virginians will elect a new governor (one of only two gubernatorial elections this year, the other being in New Jersey). At the moment, Terry McAuliffe is leading climate denier and attorney general Ken Cuccinelli in the polls, but a lot can happen between now and November 5. The campaign has been -- to put it politely, heated -- but I think it's worth highlighting why reasonable Americans everywhere should hope that Virginia doesn't somehow get stuck with Cuccinelli.

The problem with Cuccinelli is summed up by the address of a website that the Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club has created: TooExtremeKen.com. Cuccinelli's extreme record not only shows him to be on the wrong side of every environmental issue but also to be anti-science and aggressively reactionary.

How else to explain Cuccinelli's bizarre attack, as attorney general, on former University of Virginia professor and climate scientist Michael Mann? His "civil investigative demand" for university records amounted to a witch hunt that wasted hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars -- all in an attempt to discredit the scientific consensus on climate disruption. You can't say Cuccinelli lacked zeal -- he took the fight all the way to the Virginia Supreme Court. In what was widely hailed as a victory for academic freedom, he lost.

In 2010, Cuccinelli also sued to make Virginia the first state in the nation to attack the scientific consensus that carbon pollution poses a threat to human health -- and that the EPA should do something about it. (Fortunately, he lost again.)

Those who engage in witch hunts often don't believe in science. But why has Cuccinelli consistently gone the extra mile to attack anyone who thinks that climate disruption is a real problem that requires action? You need look no further than the influence of fossil fuel companies, which have donated generously to his campaign.

Currently, Cuccinelli's office is under investigation because of assistance it gave to one of those companies -- Consol Energy, which extracted natural gas from many Virginians' property without paying royalties. In dozens of emails that Cuccinelli's office later tried to hide, Consol received assistance from a Cuccinelli subordinate about how it could beat a lawsuit from these landowners. A federal judge said she was "shocked" by this, and an investigation has been launched by the state's inspector general. Consol Energy, incidentally, is one of Cuccinelli's biggest campaign donors -- having given more than $100,000 over the past two years.

Cuccinelli is one of those politicians who love to talk about a "war on coal" while ignoring the reality that coal has been waging war on all of us for decades. The good news is that Virginians, like the rest of the country, are putting dirty coal in the rearview mirror. This is a state with the nation's highest concentration of technology workers. Clean, high-tech energy like wind and solar makes sense for Virginia's future -- not coal -- especially if you're talking about jobs. Virginia already has 11,000 jobs in renewable energy, with the prospect of 10,000 more if offshore wind is properly developed.

As long as the fossil fuel industries have cash to spend, they'll be able to find politicians like Cuccinelli who are willing to carry their water. The best way to fight back is with people power, so the Sierra Club's 60,000 members and supporters in Virginia will be knocking on doors and making phone calls between now and November to alert their friends, neighbors, and other voters to just how extreme Ken Cuccinelli's positions really are. And because this election is so much about what Virginia's future will look like, a big part of the focus will be on mobilizing potential voters on college campuses from Virginia Union to William & Mary to Hampton to Virginia State. Young people know what's at stake.

Across Virginia, though, it's going to take more than empty rhetoric from a climate denier about a "war on coal" to convince Virginians to turn away from a clean-energy future.

Paid for by the Virginia Chapter Sierra Club PAC. Not authorized by any candidate.

September 02, 2013

"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find
it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

-- John Muir

"We are tied together in the single garment of
destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects
one directly affects all indirectly."

-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This Labor Day, the Sierra Club joins in celebrating working
people everywhere. As Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, recently
said about the growing collaboration between the labor movement and other
grassroots groups: "It takes all of us working together to get it
done."

Fifty years after Dr. King's iconic "I Have a
Dream" speech, and nearly five years after we elected the nation's first
African American president, the movements for economic, racial, and
environmental justice have made historic gains, but daunting challenges remain:

The
clean-energy movement has momentum, with solar and wind power growing by
leaps and bounds and the coal and nuclear industries on the ropes. Studies
show that renewable energy and energy efficiency investments create far
more jobs per dollar spent than fossil fuels. Yet well-funded climate
deniers continue to obfuscate reality and slow progress.

More
than 100,000 people gathered last week in Washington, D.C., to recommit
themselves to action for racial justice, jobs, and freedom on the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. Yet this year, the Supreme
Court eviscerated one of the core gains of the Civil Rights Movement, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965, and white families, on average, still earn
about $2 for every $1 that black and Latino families make. Meanwhile,
communities of color are still disproportionately poisoned by corporate polluters.

Young people across the globe are mobilizing in unprecedented numbers for
economic and environmental justice. But their generation faces an
uncertain future. Student debt in the U.S. totals $1 trillion, and
one-third of 20 to 24 year olds in the U.S. are neither employed nor
studying.

The immigrant rights movement, with the support of the Sierra Club and others,
succeeded in getting the Senate to pass a bipartisan immigration reform
bill. Yet a recalcitrant House has caused hope to fade for comprehensive
immigration reform in the near future, even though deportations are at
record levels, and millions of undocumented immigrant workers remain in
the shadows of our society.

The labor movement is surging, too, with fast-food strikes and emerging-worker
organizing sweeping the nation. But there's still a long road back from
historically low union density, and the gap between the wealthiest and the
rest of us has grown wider than ever.

These seemingly separate problems are linked -- and so are their
solutions. We can overcome those obstacles and build the "Beloved
Community" that Dr. King often spoke of -- but only if we do it together.
We need each other.

That's why labor, racial justice, immigrant rights, and
voting rights organizations are joining with the Sierra Club, the
Communications Workers of America, the NAACP, and Greenpeace in building the
Democracy Initiative.

The Democracy Initiative was formed in response to a
political climate where, owing to the Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens
United decision, wealthy corporate polluters and union-busters like the
Koch brothers wield unprecedented and corrosive influence in the corridors of
power. Our immediate goals include supporting voters' rights, combating voter
ID laws, and curbing aggressive use of the filibuster in the United States
Senate. Our real purpose, though, is to restore fairness to our democracy.

Although we may never be able to outspend the union-busting
corporate polluters, we do outnumber them. By acting strategically and
together, we can use our people power to beat their dollar power every time. If
we want to help working families, protect our air and water, and achieve
justice for all Americans, we must first defend our democracy.

This Labor Day, the Sierra Club celebrates working people --
and the growing unity of the labor and environmental movements in our quest for
genuine democracy and justice for all.